


no use crying about it

by therestisdetail



Category: RuPaul's Drag Race (US) RPF
Genre: F/F, so does the boys, superhero movies have a lot answer for
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2020-11-04
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:47:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27383668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/therestisdetail/pseuds/therestisdetail
Summary: She drinks and poses, and smiles for the cameras. Perfectly. "Why did you decide to join now?" They ask, among a lot of other, more boring questions."We could call it that," she says brightly to all of the journalists and all of their cameras, "Or we could just ask them why they only decided to call me now.""We are very proud," Envy says immediately, and so smoothly Janey is a bit fucking impressed, "That Janey has joined us, and-"She must have done this so many times before. In the back room, afterwards, Janey puts her drink down and stands a little straighter when they are alone, looks Envy right in the eye.Here we go."That could have gone better." Envy says, tired."Yeah, probably." Janey agrees, almost smiling. Waiting for it."Let me answer next time." Envy says. Tireder.
Relationships: envy peru/janey jacke
Comments: 6
Kudos: 3





	1. Chapter 1

  
Janey is a fighter. Look it up. It's a running joke for the public, at this point. She gets things done with a certain amount of expected collateral damage.

"Oh no, here comes her. Things are going to get competitive." 

It's the first thing she hears when she walks in, tilts her head up and smiles with perfect lipstick. Well, good.

Things are very media-managed. The superhero brand is valuable.

Chelsea is not quite human enough right now to do a handshake but seems friendly when they brush past, and of course Ma'Ma is nowhere to be seen, yet probably watching anyway.

Envy is a home-grown legend dressed up nicely in a flag. Everyone loves her, of course you do. She welcomes Janey graciously but absently, her eyes always darting to Abby, the other new recruit. Abby is her little sister in very real ways. As far as Janey can work out Envy maybe met her at, what; Eleven? Twelve? Janey doesn't know, but she knows Envy is sentimental about it. That's fine.

Envy offers Janey a drink. It could never be called champagne by anyone honest, but Janey takes it for the cameras. 

Janey kind of... expected more. Whatever. 

She drinks and poses, and smiles for the cameras. Perfectly. "Why did you decide to join now?" They ask her, among a lot of other, more boring questions. 

"We could call it that," she says brightly to all of the journalists and all of their cameras. "Or we could just ask them why they only decided to call me now."

"We are very proud," Envy says immediately, and so smoothly Janey is a bit fucking impressed, "That Janey has joined us, and-"

She must have done this so many times before. In the back room, afterwards, Janey puts her drink down and stands a little straighter when they are alone, looks Envy right in the eye.

Here we go.

"That could have gone better." Envy says, tired.

"Yeah, probably." Janey agrees, almost smiling. Waiting for it.

"Let me answer next time." Envy says. Tireder. 

"Um. I- okay." Envy says, turning away.

"Fuck that," Janey explodes after a good few moments of trying to stop herself, because she is so wound up, knows better and knows she fucked up. 

She's so damn ready and something almost like impatient to take a backhand across the face and reply with something smart, she had words lined all up, what the fuck. "Is that it?" 

She was not ready for Envy to look so-

So very- 

"I'm tired," Envy says quiet, reaching for Janey's arm briefly. "You'll get all kinds of hell about it tomorrow, I'm sure. But I'm not corporate and I just don't really care enough to fight you on this."

"But if you did," Janey says quiet, Envy's hand still on her arm, "You could put me through that wall. Right now. I know you could."

Envy smiles a little. "And anything with a spark in it you could tear down at me, bright thing," she says soft. "I've watched you on youtube too, Janey."

Janey smiles, because what youtube can't tell her is that she's a fighter. Before any of this bullshit kicked in, before the world even knew about the kids born different and the things they could do, she was in a little village out nowhere, with six guys holding her down. 

She couldn't do the things she can do now back then, call on electricity like it's running in her veins. But she did hit back. 

She hit back until they had to knock her out, fought back and she drew blood. It didn't change anything in the end but some of them were bleeding and that is important to her. That part. That she did that.

Janey is a fighter, and the whole world out there might think they know her; they have no idea.

*

  
Chelsea has a lot of shapes, and she tries to wear the one that will make people most comfortable most of the time, she's very polite like that.

"Sorry miss," she says with what she thinks is the correct number of limbs and just the second time she meets the new girl, the only blue on her today in her hair and on her clothes, "I owe you a handshake, I think?"

"A hand, not a hand," Janey grins, reaches out, winks. She never flinches from Chelsea, she smiles and doesn't care. "Or whatever you've got going."

Chelsea might like the new girl. Just a bit.

More importantly, she visits Envy. 

"Are you okay?" she asks quiet, dropping her shapes, but holding on to Envy all the same. Scales can be warm too.

"No," Envy says, absolutely hollow. "Had a terrible night. I dreamed that they brought in that girl to replace me, and they are going to hurt her to do it."

"Oh," Chelsea says, trying to work out what to say when human people cry. "Abby?"

"No. Yes. Her too, both of them. I don't know. I had a dream, they asked me to decide which one is the lamb and which one is the lion."

She sounds sad. Chelsea holds both her hands, and then twists a tail around too so she can grab her closer, hold her soft.

"Just a dream," Envy says, and Chelsea knows when human people are lying, she just doesn't always know what to do about it. "Just a dream, you know. A bad one."

"Sorry."

"Fuck this," Envy says fiercely, leaning into all of Chelsea's comfort. "Fuck all of this."

*

In a perfect world, there is a very perfect equation. 

They can do things other people can't, or in Chelsea's case, are from other worlds. They have powers. They do those things. People are saved. Story complete, story very nice and very simple. 

They are sent on a lot of stories that end simple, because it sells well.

Real shame it's in this world instead, considering. 

If that was all it was, it would have been nice.

*

Ma'Ma sees everything, whether she wants to or not.

"Get out of my room."

"Tell me what I need to know," Envy responds calmly, because Ma'Ma is warm even when her defenses are up. "And I promise that I will."

Ma'Ma's finger dance across her table. She smiles a little, but when she glances back at Envy it's soft, it's sad."I am not going to tell you something you like."

"Tell me," Envy says, louder.

"You can pick one." Ma'ma says. "Maybe, and even that isn't certain. You might be able to keep one."

"I'm not ready to decide that." 

"It won't actually be your choice." Ma'ma tells her.

Ma'Ma sees _everything._

  
*

Corporate meets with Janey and Abby, seperately. On paper, it's about accomodation. Or maybe tomorrow's interview schedules. There were conflicting emails.

They listen for a given amount of time and would both be so damn mad if they knew they made the exact same unquiet exit when they each learned replacing Envy was the end goal.

Or proud. Mad, or proud.

  
*

Janey's angry again, and also a bit drunk. Fuck off, it's five o'clock somewhere.

She's not new. On paper, they decide what they do themselves, that's the appeal, and if there is a tied vote they look to Envy, she's theoretically in charge.

It's all bullshit, but knowing that on paper and living it are more different than Janey maybe accounted for.

They do a call out, high profile, less context than she would have liked. It's a mess. Very next day, they sit still when it is politically convenient and wrong to do and Janey knows, she would fucking bet her life on it, that Envy agrees.

"What the fuck is your problem?" She snarls, with just enough respect left to drag Envy to another room first and do it privately, at five o'clock somewhere. "Don't pretend you don't know, don't ask permission, stand up do what the fuck you want."

"This is dangerous ground," Envy says. Oh, so fancy.

"Fuck you," Janey informs her. "It's the same ground everywhere, fuck them and just do it. Take what you want. They do. That's what happens. Do it."

"Take what you _want_ -"

Envy shoves her against a wall and kisses her.

"Huh." Janey says. Undeterred, and pulling her clothes off already. The lights are doing something strange. She is not scared, but she could pretend to be if you like it. "Yeah, fine, start there."

She kisses back, and pulls Envy close. Takes charge, drags one of Envy's hands ghosting across her hip lower and presses an invitation right between her legs, takes the other hand and presses it to her throat.

Envy accepts both, and while she never chokes tight she also never lets go. 

Janey leans in to whatever is available, and makes marks in the wall with her nails. The lights explode right as Envy bites her lip, and some lower floors loose power temporarily, but that is fine. A minor maintenance issue.

" I-" Janey starts, stops. None of that matters. She gets her breath back, drops to her knees, and kisses up Envy's thigh.

"No."

Wait, what.

"Fuck off," Janey says, slightly mad, looking up. She's really good at this. "Turnabout is fair play. I-"

"No," Envy says, like they have cameras on them both when for once they don't, actually dragging her back onto good behaviour. A shameful mistake, fine. Janey has been that before. 

"I should not have-"

"Not to ruin your night," Janey snarls, unforgiving. "Newsflash, doesn't matter if you didn't feel it, you still fucked a girl."

"I am not worried that I fucked a girl," Envy tells her. Right to the point. "I'm worried that I fucked you."

Well. 

That hurts, a bit.

  
*

  
From day one, all of them were different. Envy and Ma'Ma can do more and a lot, Chelsea was from another place and beyond all that they could imagine. The government had their rules and they each individually made their choices. 

Janey was finally recruited after she drained an old nuclear power station in one go by accident, made hell and said sorry to nobody from the day she was fourteen and ever since.

Abby is so loved, so _special_ , she is smart, young, strong, kind and can do a lot of things. She looks good in the uniform. She is Envy's little sister in ways that are real; Envy met her when she was something like twelve and as far as Janey can tell, is still terribly sentimental about her.

Abby is a lot of things. And right now, she's so fucking scared.

It's a mission that is supposed to be easy. It's her first time out alone. Well, she meant to go alone, she hates Janey, they have fought like cats over clothes and camera time and everything else, but here she is. Janey got bored, follows her and breaks the rules and gives her shit the entire time.

Janey's favourite joke is that the only thing faster than Abby is her damn mouth, and she repeats it a few times, not because it is a good joke but just because it reliably makes both Abby and Envy yell at her. Abby is very fast, at unexpected moments and in even less expected places. It's just- if she does get hit, just once in a million, it can be bad.

"Fuck," Abby says absently, looking at blood on her like she forgot that was even a possibility. Maybe she had, just a bit.

Then Janey takes the next bullet for her in between all of that and then it's Janey who is holding her close down and safe from fire and-

"We are going to get through this," Janey tells her, pressed close.

"You and me. I am not going to move unless you are with me."

"Fuck." Abby says, holding on to her because everything hurts a lot. "Okay. Let's go."

Janey does. And she doesn't do it by half measures, they fall and she gets Abby halfway there then shoves her to go, finds every powerline in this building and tears it down, on whoever is coming and both of them.

She can take a lot, and she's got Abby under her, shielded with whatever of Janey's body is available. Fuck it. If there was time for desperate last stands, it's now.

They are both interrupted, because Envy arrives. Cape and all, she arrives. Breaks in the whole ceiling.

No literally, she flies in and tears down the ceiling, like it's paper. Origami paper. Envy arrives and everyone learns how national legends are made as she breaks all of everything, and... and a lot. Except for Abby and Janey, who she carries out. The feelings Janey haves while that's happening may be slightly unpatriotic but they are also unexpectedly intense, and she quickly shoves them down.

This time, none of the journalists get their quote. Envy heads the press conference, smiles once and tells them all, with a sense of finality, that no. 

They don't get anything like that today. Envy's tired. So they can all, very politely, fuck off.

*

  
"How could you do that?" Abby asks. When they next meet, all of them, as awkward in the room as they knew they would be. Asks, yells. Both.

"I was informed," Envy starts, with little feeling and even less conviction. Stops. "That nothing would-" she falters again. "I was told what I was told."

"And it is what it is," Janey steps in and surprises everyone, trying to end this conversation. "It happens."

"You have shrapnel they took out of you," Abby snarls at her, clutching at her chest, "That was meant to be in here. Not because I'm not good, because they didn't _tell me anything_ and you got right in front of me so it was in you instead. Are you fucking serious?"

She turns up the volume.

"How could any of you-"

"Grow up." Janey tells her bleakly.

No one else got hurt, so Janey figures she's the one who has to and bites the metaphorical bullet and says it. "We're all on the same leash. It's always a test. And they can do that. That's called power, and we just look like we have it. They actually do."

"No." Abby is too Abby for any of that. Too young, too fierce for that.

"Fuck that, I-" She's not having it.

"How could you do that?" She asks, reaching for Envy specifically, grabbing at both her hands. "How could you send me out there and not at least fucking say?"

Envy-

She snaps. Breaks. No other word for it.

"Because I thought I was sending Janey. Whatever hell I have earned, I deserve it, I thought that I was sending her."

Room is real quiet after that.

Janey finishes the drink she was pouring for herself, then glances around and makes it a double.

"So," she says into silence. "Anyway. Ignoring that."

*

  
A few days earlier, Abby is still being seen to by doctors and Janey, who apologised facetiously for bleeding on Envy's uniform before passing out, doesn't have any bruises left on her you could see.

Chelsea spends all her time following Janey around in a variety of comforting, often-furred shapes until Janey relents and scratches her behind the ear.

"I'm fine," she says. "Fuck off somewhere else."

Personal space was a whole page in the tips and tricks Ma'Ma wrote out for her back when she was newer here than she is now, so Chelsea purrs and obligingly fucks off somewhere else.

Envy is not new(ish) to being human(ish), but maybe could use that particular reminder.

"I need to speak to you," she says, closing Janey's bedroom door behind her before she's even finished the sentence. 

Janey, halfway dressed, raises an eyebrow.

"Right." She says. She looks down at the shirt in her hand then back at the closed door. Stands up a little straighter. "Or we could just skip the yelling part this time. Whatever."

"Don't." Envy keeps her eyes up, on Janey's face, she's such a lady. "I need to speak to you about what happened. Because I knew."

"I figured that out when you arrived."

"I mean before that. I don't - not in so many words, but they warned me to be on standby and the other times they have done that it's always been like this. Some reason they want to be seen to try but they don't actually want us to get it done."

Janey says nothing. She suspects that this is a confessional, not a conversation, and she's not needed.

"They asked my recommendation," Envy continues. "Asked me who I thought would be able to handle going alone. They never did that before. Out of you or Abby. I pretended to myself I didn't know what was going on and I said they should send you."

"Wow," Janey says after a moment. "They really tried to fuck with your head on that one, huh."

Envy has this way of holding herself, controlled but almost overly open, which is fascinating to Janey. It's probably why she plays so well on tv.

"Janey, I would have let-"

"I heard." Janey interrupts quickly. "I don't care. I never asked you to look out for me and I don't expect it. I can look after my damn self and I would have." Her eyes narrow for a moment, then she suddenly starts smiling. "Wait, how long before?"

"What?"

"Fucking incredible." Janey says as she steps closer and drapes her arms around Envy's neck, well and truly grinning now, "Now all that guilt is off your chest, are you going to maybe not flip out halfway through like a crazy woman if I make a move again?"

Envy blinks.

Envy's arms are full of Janey, and she did not expect anything in particular but definitely not this. She blinks. "You cannot be serious."

"Sure I can." Envy can feel Janey's mouth move against her neck as she replies. "Life's too short to take anything personally. Well, mine probably will be. I'm not calling you old. I'm just saying, you've had a decent run, you obvously look great for your age. For the love of god, will you please shut me up before I say something even I could regr-"

It is similar and it is different from the first time Envy kissed Janey to stop her from talking. 

Similar in that it works, again, and different in how much gentler it is.

*

  
"Not ignoring that," Abby says immediately. "Not ignoring anything like that. Ever."

From the mouths of children, or whatever.

"It's all bullshit," she announces. "Ignore it? No, she was there, on the fucking day, for me. What else matters? And so were you. We have-"

"Easy," Janey says, standing before Envy or Chelsea can, sitting her down. Gentler than she usually tries to play it. "Turned out fine and you still have me, I promise I am ready to go. I'm just taking a break and maybe a juice cleanse, I don't know, I'm-"

"Oh my god," Abby says.

"Oh my god I hate you all and I mean it," Abby says, right to Envy's face, because she loves her completely, and despite herself is softening on Janey. "She'll never ask you so I have to, you need to fucking demand us both. That's got to be your only answer. Or I'm going to- ugh. Fuck."

She does not finish the sentence.

They can all can only nod.

Well, Janey shrugs and smiles. She can be a little shit like that.

*

  
Envy holds her very own press conference, for the many-something-th time on paper and also, in other ways, maybe first real time. Abby is holding on to her hand the whole way, and Chelsea is a comforting little mammal in her pocket.

Envy takes the stage, and tries to sound proud about anything she's about to say. She isn't. She ought to have done this too long ago. But she says it proud, polls say it works better. Say it like you are. Try to until you mean it. Be whatever is needed.

Envy takes the stage, and explains exactly how their latest escapade happened, on script, and then goes entirely off while PR freak out, and outlines a few changes being made, watches with no small amount of pleasure how everyone's phones, devices, and lives seem to implode with notifications.

"Not to be dramatic," Envy says, being the absolute most dramatic, "But the details are already in your phones. If you are worried how Ma'Ma did that, you should maybe consider points six through eight of our suggestions about the greater need for transparency. I want that."

"I want a lot of things." She smiles beatifically. "I have some changes I have decided are worth fighting for, and for now, I have the microphone."

"Some of those have footnotes," Janey adds, from a formal but in-shot distance, because she likes a camera too. "Buckle in."

Abby shoves her for it, unintentionally knocking Envy, Chelsea spills out, a TikTok star in the making. Ma'Ma is there the whole time, although the video receipts on that say otherwise. They're usually wrong about that one.

*

Envy brings Ma'Ma tea as a small thanks. She uses the nice crockery. When she enters, Ma-Ma doesn't turn around.

"Put it on the desk."

"Okay," Envy says agreeably.

"I wasn't wrong." Ma'Ma says, towards a screen to her right. "You asked me about your choices. Not about theirs."

"Ah," Envy says fondly. "Of course. That explains it."

"Is it good tea?"

"I really don't know," Envy admits. "I bought something expensive and hoped. French earl something." She puts it down on the table. "Does this mean I don't need to worry, Ma'Ma?"

"Obviously not," Ma'Ma tells her, running her fingers over some crystals, in between all the electronics. "There are a few million ways it could still go wrong. I'll let you know how many when I finish counting."

Ma'Ma likes being only fractionally understood, and Envy is a good enough friend to indulge her in all that mystery. Besides, she couldn't stop worrying if she tried.

"Yes, Ma'ama. And thank you, for counting."

The tea is quite nice. Ma'Ma speaks, just as Envy is about to close the door that let her in but won't let her back, no one door has ever led to Ma'Ma's room twice but they've learned to deal with that.

"I'm glad they picked each other," Ma'Ma says. "It wasn't the strongest possibility. It was- you don't want to know. But I am glad. Sometimes we all like to be wrong."

*

They may not be perfect, not by a long shot, but they are young gods tired of being pushed around anymore, and only just realising they are not alone in this fight worth having.

It might not be the most fine they could have expected, but their lives have always been rough, and getting here together... it's a lot more fine than any of them ever really expected.


	2. epilogue (it is what it is, until it was what it was)

  
There are befores and afters. For everyone. 

This is after. 

Envy comes back from the press conference utterly composed until the doors close and the press are all long gone, then she's on her knees, all but hyperventilating.

Abby and Chelsea are close to her immediately and holding her, doing things that look helpful and from an unstudied eye might be, so Janey holds back and does nothing.

A thought in the back of her head makes riot, and it isn't hers. She grins.

"Fuck you too," she says back, to empty air, to wherever Ma'Ma is. "I'd do more harm than good. She's fine."

  
*

  
_Before, Abby is twelve. A bunch of people come in government vehicles, they want to see how she plays football. She's so proud of herself. She is all of twelve. She's so good at it. She's fast._

_Envy is the only one who says the truth._

_"Hey, kid," it's a lunch break, unofficial. Abby is scared of no one. Not yet._

_"They're going to ask a lot of questions tomorrow." Envy doesn't know if she's a good person, but if she can be once, she will try it out. "They don't need to know what we know."_

_Abby likes her a lot but forgets that advice immediately. It's not her fault. She is all of twelve._

*

  
"I'm fine," Envy says, standing back up, and Abby wants to believe it as much as she doesn't, not at all. She wraps her arms around Envy's waist.

"Darling-" Envy says. So soft.

"No," Abby tells her. "No, just get up."

"I don't know what I hav-"

"We." 

Abby says it. Immediately.

Envy, standing with her arms around Abby to stay steady, stops, starts again like her world just readied itself. Maybe it did.

"I don't know what we have done," she says gentle, getting it right on the second try. Looks around at all of them.

"I guess it's their move, now." She looks down at her pocket and pulls out her pass. "Let's use this while we still can and see how far the access is that all these years have earned me."

Abby holds on to her hand. She loves family. They're the only people she'd ever give so much hell to, they're the only people she cares enough to.

Envy is family. That's her sister.

Envy walks in like she owns the place because on paper she does, and Abby follows, holding her hand.

This room has a lot of files. Kind of old fashioned, mostly on paper. Abby's name is on one of them.

Envy finds Abby's so easy there is no doubt she has done it before. 

"Everything," she says. "Everything they know. Background, transcripts, medical and more that you probably never-"

"I love you," Abby says, right to her face. "I'm saying this now. I still will later, but also, I reserve the right to be fucking pissed off about this."

She is their heart, whenever they need one.

  
*

_Before, Chelsea drops to earth with a desire to find out and a certain amount of distance. Not to care. It's only about discovery._

_She lands, finds things, shifts a lot, is found. Wherever they put her it is always either too bright or too dark, underground, the people who come don't try to communicate back. Chelsea is not from here, she tries to communicate but they never respond, they just seem nervous._

_Envy walks in alone, sits down. Right on the ground. Looks at her._

_Chelsea, who has been on this planet maybe a week, draws pictures with her tail. One of Envy, human shaped, one of - well, people in hazmat suits are mostly a blob. She does her best._

_Envy smiles. "I told them you couldn't hurt me if you tried. They didn't like it, but they had a hard enough time proving me wrong that here I am. What do you understand, of what I am saying?"_

_Chelsea stands. Chelsea draws a big circle in the dirt. It circles Envy, and when she steps into it, purposefully, it circles Chelsea too._

*

  
Chelsea's file does not come in manila envelopes, like the others. It comes in boxes.

Chelsea flicks through it all, curious. They certainly did a lot of tests.

There's a knock at her door, and it isn't what she expected,

"Hi," Janey says. "How are you? I'm not her, sorry. She's looking after Abby."

"Do not be sorry," Chelsea says, firmly.

"Jesus christ." Janey says weakly, seeing the boxes and sitting herself on Chelsea's floor. She's halfway through a bottle and just holds it out as an offer, wordless. "Girl, I- fuck."

Chelsea sniffs it, takes a try and gives it back.

Chelsea was meant to find out and report back, not to care. That's why she came here.

"I knew something of what I would find," she admits, for the first time. Janey is a little drunk and fiddling with her own hair, but listening. She nods.

"I knew I would find many things. I knew I should not care what it was." Chelsea says, speaking about more than what is held in cardboard. "Then I found Envy."

"Oh," Janey says, searching for her bottle, finding a glass and pouring one for Chelsea, so polite. "Relatable."

"And you. And everyone else. All of us."

Janey blinks. "Yeah?"

Chelsea does not know what _relatable_ means precisely, but there is warmth in how Janey says it. And she trusts the things Janey says warm. She leans in and hugs her close, takes the second drink offered her and makes a face but doesn't complain. Janey is warm too, they hold each other and they laugh.

Chelsea is not supposed to care. 

She's-

She's really fucked that one up, probably a lot.

*

  
_Before, a while ago, Janey would've argued she was all grown. Most fifteen-year olds do._

_Janey is good at what she does and making news, but Volendam is not top of the list. They aren't A-grade. She's a footnote somewhere, she knows it, but does what she does until they fucking notice._

_After fighting a knock-down fight in a back alley, all the lights shattering and saving a kid and making the news, she wipes the blood from her mouth and makes pretty for when headquarters are coming. She makes the news, alright. She expects the men in suits with talking points that headquarters sends, she doesn't expect the stylists._

_"I didn't think there would be-" Quite so many pastels, for one thing. She stops silent as someone grabs her jaw to apply lipstick. She starts again when she can. "I thought it might have more room for movement. Like what Miss Peru wears."_

_"Oh, honey," one of the interchangeable, blandly well dressed people tell her, choosing a lipgloss, putting it on her. She's B-grade for now, at best. "Stay still. Try again when you're legal to fuck."_

_Janey learns her lesson and doesn't ask any questions the rest of that day. She stays quiet, except when the camera is on her, listens and learns and grows up fast.  
_

  
*

  
Janey waits until she's finished making sure Chelsea still trusts her enough to climb close and hold each other, kisses her hair and then walks out to knock at Envy's door.

It's not that she didn't break that rule before, it's just that now there are apparently none she wants to really show up, do right, except this turned out... as something. She's pretty sure she'll have something respectable to say when Envy opens the- 

"Hi," she says. Holds up her file. "I'm doing my homework."

Maybe not respectable enough, in retrospect. 

Envy lets her in and Janey tumbles to somewhere warm and safe, in her bed and under her hands. Flicks it all open.

"Oh," she says, after a few brutal truths about blood tests and recovery time. Envy is so still, so quiet, Janey in her lap.

"Check this out," she says, holding it up to Envy. It's a photo, a rare original. "Look what I used to wear."

Envy holds her by the waist, close. Quiet, like she's afraid.

"You know you're a good person, right?" Janey says conversationally, eyes still on her file, flicking through it. "The one benefit to that is that you don't need to keep trying so hard." 

She leans back, unguarded. "Relax," she says, "Trust your instincts for like one damn minute. They're good ones. Also, check out this fucking disaster of a skirt-"

Janey has survived a long time under the looming thought that eventually, she will run out of someone's usefulness, that or someone's patience. Envy is different.

"Well," Envy obeys and relaxes for a minute, maybe a bit more than that. She strokes Janey's hair and looks at the photo. "It's not the worst I have seen."

"Liar!" Janey cackles out loud, and Envy only holds her closer.

  
*

Before, and-

*

  
Before, and also after, Ma'Ma is twenty and-

Wait. That's not her twenty. 

She tries again. She's thirty, and celebrating a birthday in Belgium, and-

No, that's Sederginne.

She's twenty and she just found out about Janey and Envy and- no. While that is endlessly entertaining, and also loud, that's Abby.

Ma'Ma tries her best, honestly. Quite often. But it's confusing, to keep up with all of them.

Time is a bit hard when it is all happening at once, and so is everything that could and didn't, that could and did.

Ma'Ma is someone who cares and also no one knows how many years old, and opens the door to enjoy tea with a very good friend about things that are going to change.

Yeah. That's it.

*

  
_Envy had a childhood that was not easy, but it wasn't different. She kept that secret. She kept it until she was all of twenty-one and there was a bus and some kids and-_

_Sometimes, decisions make you._

_Envy got to be a kid, kind of. One way or another. She looks around and feels like she should almost atone for that._

_Two fingers click in front of her face._

_"Hey," Ma'Ma says, there in the room, but also not, loud all the same. "I know where you are. Hi. Snap out of it."_

_Envy breathes out slow, and takes her advice. She reaches for furniture, finds memories instead. Abby laughing, carefree. Chelsea confused by a tap, but also wiser than Envy could ever be. Janey in her bed trying not to swear and failing. Ma'ma, as and where she is. All those things._

_First, she has to make a stand. Then, she has to take Abby and Janey by the hand, show them all she can. Chelsea - she probably already knew. Then she has to wait and see. It might still go bad, if corporate get mad. But she tried. She did the right thing._

_It's not showy by nature, what she has. It's a lot, it's more. It doesn't show by accident, you can keep that secret for years. And that's how she has lived ever since._

_Until now._

_*_

Before, Envy was young and she knew when she was different, and- well. Before she ever said it out loud, even once, she just tried to live. She plays it soft, cares too much. 

It's a good role for her. It fits. Other people, not so much.

She is who she is. She loves and loses them one by one, girl by girl, Patty and Megan and Madame, Sederginne and-

There was a girl, they never even got past names. She was really young. R- something.

She loses people, and still stays standing. It is what it is.

It's not showy by nature, what she has. It's a lot, it's more. But it doesn't show by accident, if you are careful and very scared. you can keep that secret for years

But now, she has a press conference to do.

*

She comes back utterly composed until the doors close and the press are all long gone, then she's on her knees, all but hyperventilating.

Abby and Chelsea are close to her immediately and holding her, Janey is at a distance, Envy meets her eyes. Ma'ma is.

"I'm fine," she says.

She is. They're all there, so she is. Or close enough.

She is making a stand, and it's corporate's move now. But her girls, don't cross them. They'll make hell.

Envy is very tired, and for once, very proud too.

There are befores and afters. For everyone. 

This is after. 


End file.
